Bibio: The Apple and the Tooth

One-third new tracks and two-thirds remixes by friends, colleagues and admirers - this isn't quite a follow-up to Stephen Wilkinson's Warp debut, Ambivalence Avenue, but it's more than mere between-albums filler. There are four new tracks and they're all expert, full of electronic papier-mache layers of arpeggiated guitars, glitchy drum patterns and joyful percussive samples. Combined they emit hints of early, day-glo hip-hop, Warp sonic ambition and introspection. The remixes are, in parts, much darker. San Francisco-based dubstepper Eskmo turns Dwrcan into an ominous Panorama montage of a track, and fellow Warp artist Clark overdubs S'Vive with a new beat that's as menacing as a nihilistic Millwall fan's internal monologue. Not all are made sinister, though - there's a great synthetic upbeat rendering of Sugarette by sometime Friendly Fires man Rob Lee (aka Wax Stag) that's eloquent enough to remind the listener of Kraftwerk. Yet, despite the added value of the remixes and the quality of the original tracks, The Apple and the Tooth remains a complementary piece - albeit one that's a compliment to Bibio's craft, too.